Teddy Roosevelt. The glasses and moustache are fun, and I could 'rough ride' a little hobby horse.to all of you, yes I know what I just wrote. don't. go. there.posted by wendell at 11:40 AM on October 31, 2004

Wouldn't you want to dress up as someone recognizable? I just dressed up as an animal cookie for this last halloween (white clothing, lots of multi-colored paper punched dots taped on) and 4/5 people didn't get it, and I've decided that's not the point.

Of course, years ago I dressed all in pink, put on a long black beak, and stood on one leg for most of the night, and seriously, most people couldn't get that I was a flamingo. "Toucan Sam?" they'd guess....posted by weston at 12:27 PM on October 31, 2004

Rasputin (including his legendary wang).posted by ba at 1:36 PM on October 31, 2004

i had joked that my halloween costume would be something truly scary this year...specifically, supreme court justice antonin scalia (complete with duck-hunting gun and bloody wire coathanger). since i was going to a party held by the historical society of my very catholic hometown, i thought better of it.

if i could go as anyone else, i'd probably go as the occasion-appropriate margaretta fox, pioneering fraud spiritualist. a cutie, and very halloween-y!posted by pxe2000 at 1:53 PM on October 31, 2004

God, the God of the Old testament - riding a huge hungry dinosaur that fronts a vast ravening herd of saurians sprung up from bones and clothed in apocalypse, wielding a giant sequoia as a club and a mountain as a bludgeon, lightning bolts springing from his eyes and buna-supercharged gouts of magma from his mouth, type 5 hurricanes whirling to life at his beckon to scour the earth of drive-in churches and the television studios of televangelists who prey on the aged, to lay waste to those who presume to act in his name........

.....and, for good measure, laying waste to pretty much everything (because he is an angry, vengeful God not given to minor discriminations between the wicked, the just, and the innocent) and overlaying ensuing charred, flooded out, corpse strewn flotsam and jetsam - of what was once a great or at least prolific technological civilization - with a neatening overlay of thick mud, and sprinkling seeds for new ground cover and conjuring new flora and fauna from the dust, the mud, and the void - to breathe into them life and give rise to a new age.

On his way out the door, God will casually toss his calling card - as a set of stone tablets engraved with testy warnings such as "I'm giving you one last chance. Don't blow it, or I'll be back. Maybe I'll be back anyway, but much sooner if you make a mess of things like the last time. Keep your nose clean, and don't use my name in vain, ever - God" - towards the mouth of a cave where a small band of humans which has somehow escaped the floods and fires, the winds and plagues of devouring beasts, has huddled in terror. As the winds and thunder die down and the ebbing rains give way to the blessings of rainbows - as they tremulously emerge from their hideaway to peek out at the end of the world they have known and the start of another, they will see a blinding, shifting form - amorphously radiant in terrible beauty - sweep by, and several large stone tablets will arc through the air, crushing several hapless survivors and propelling the rest, shrieking and wailing outwards towards the new age where one day their descendants will mine landfills and garbage heaps for the raw materials from which to build a new civilization.

God's tablets will, lie forgotten at the mouth of the cave, until they crumble to dust, and his word will be forgotten by men and women who will, as is their wont, give rise to a new affront that one day calls God back from duties elsewhere, for another round of creative destruction but - this time - with a new species : dolphins might crawl back on land, or emus grow larger brains and limbs with something like hands. Or perhaps the cephalopods......posted by troutfishing at 5:15 AM on November 1, 2004

Oh - but I misread the question : I thought it asked "If you could dress up as anyone AS history, who would it be?....."

crash - whatever happened to Evel Knievel ? He was a big deal when I was a kid.

Did he fail to make another Grand Canyon jump and smack into the canyon wall in a fireball, to bounce - with the charred wreckage of his rocket powered motorcycle - down the cliffside to the ground - to serve as flame cured jerky for hungry coyotes ? Or, is he working as a Hollywood consultant for Vin Diesel movies ?posted by troutfishing at 6:21 AM on November 1, 2004

I'm thinking an old spinster's long black dress + hatchet would be pretty versatile. I could be Carrie Nation at one party and Lizzie Bordan at the next.posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 9:39 AM on November 1, 2004

One year, I put my hair in two braids, put on my bolo tie and wore a sort of vaguely native-looking jacket, and told everyone I was Ben Nighthorse Campbell.

The following year, I got a haircut and went as the SprintPCS guy.

This year, I did what I do more often, and ignored the whole thing. (Candy gives me a headache, anyway.)posted by lodurr at 10:38 AM on November 1, 2004

Jack Albertson as Shelley Winters husband in The Poseidon Adventure.posted by Dean_Paxton at 6:15 AM on November 24, 2004

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